One thing that's become clear over the course of the last decade is that the absolute worst thing you can do for this generation of "public service" leaders is put them in a situation where they're actually expected to do the public service.
New Orleans' public works department is again without a leader after acting director Sarah Porteous resigned her post a little more than a year into the job.
The city has been without a permanent public works director for two and a half years. Porteous replaced the previous acting director, Josh Hartley, who left in August 2022. Hartley took over in the spring of 2021, after the last permanent director, Keith Lagrange, left to work for the City of Mandeville.
Porteous submitted her resignation Sept. 6, and her last day is Sept. 27. A spokesperson for Mayor LaToya Cantrell said a replacement has not been chosen.
The public works director manages some of the city’s most vexing infrastructure challenges, including clogged catch basins and old drainage pipes, blinking traffic lights and a $2 billion road repair program that has dogged Cantrell throughout her tenure.
Oh no, we have all this money that we're supposed to use to fixed the pipes and roads and stuff! Nobody in politics... or, really, upper management anywhere.. wants a job like that. They all went to school and trained to manage the "doing more with less" con. The gig is supposed to be about cutting services and reducing staff through "innovation" and contracting things out then taking that resume and bolting to the next job.
The context that makes that seem appropriate is supposed to be a permanent austerity regime. You can't give anyone in leadership who was educated after the 1980s a big pile of money and tell them to go build some infrastructure. All they know how to do is strip it down and sell it off. Don't ask any of these people to actually deliver anything. That isn't what they're here for.
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